The Body Shop Australia builds a stronger technology foundation for local independence

With more than 3,000 stores globally and 90 retail locations across Australia, The Body Shop Australia has built its reputation on ethical business practices, customer experience and innovation. As the business evolved, so too did its technology needs, requiring a modern, scalable IT environment that could support both its retail operations and future growth.

To support its transition to a more independent operating model, The Body Shop Australia embarked on a major transformation challenge. The organisation set out to modernise its technology stack, establish greater local control and continue supporting day-to-day operations, all while delivering multiple large-scale projects simultaneously.

Working alongside Truis, The Body Shop Australia undertook a broad technology transformation that included a Microsoft 365 migration, domain modernisation, Dynamics 365 enablement, Azure services, security improvements and a large-scale Shopify POS rollout. Together, the teams created a stronger local technology foundation designed to support the next phase of growth and innovation.

At a glance

The Body Shop Australia National Technology Transformation

Sector: Retail
Stores involved: 90
Service partners: Microsoft, Shopify
Key Outcome: Local transformation recognised as a template for global markets

The Body Shop has been challenging industry norms since it was founded in Brighton, England, in 1976 by Dame Anita Roddick. Built on the belief that business can be a force for good, the company became known for its ethical sourcing practices, naturally inspired products and commitment to social and environmental causes.

Today, The Body Shop Australia supports customers through approximately 90 retail stores and a national e-commerce platform. As the Australian business evolved, it became clear that a more independent technology environment would be critical to supporting future growth, operational agility and customer experience.

The Challenge

The project began as part of a broader move towards independence from globally managed systems.

Historically, The Body Shop Australia was tied to global operations. While those systems had supported the business for many years, the organisation recognised an opportunity to gain greater control over its own technology environment while creating a platform better suited to local business needs.

For Kieran Egan, IT Manager at The Body Shop Australia, the transformation represented one of the most significant technology initiatives the business had undertaken.

“We were part of the UK, or the global market, and one of our big projects for last year was to separate from the UK and become our own market here in Australia. We wanted to modernise it in a way so we could effectively support it at a smaller scale, and do all the work ourselves rather than relying on the UK,” Kieran said.

“The domain migration really allowed us to modernise our environment and set us up for a lot more success to introduce new software and programs,” Kieran said.

The project was driven by several business priorities.

Greater local control would allow the business to move faster, also creating opportunities to modernise technology, reduce costs and improve support responsiveness.

“There is a cost-saving opportunity for us to move to a more modernised platform,” Kieran said.

The Microsoft project also supported The Body Shop Australia’s transition from SAP to Dynamics 365 and reduced its reliance on systems and teams operating overseas.

“There was a transition to move away from SAP, which was centrally managed by the UK, and we wanted to move to Dynamics 365. We wanted to move the domain as well, which really gave us better control over what ERP system we could utilise and allow greater control and granular control over all our access and systems in that space," Kieran said.

The project extended far beyond a traditional Microsoft migration. Alongside the Microsoft transformation, The Body Shop Australia was preparing to replace an ageing point-of-sale environment across approximately 90 stores while progressing ERP changes and other strategic initiatives.

Historically, the POS environment was not centrally managed and relied on external support providers. The business wanted to build on its existing Shopify investment and create a more connected experience between online and in-store retail operations.

Helping achieve this project on the Truis side was Account Manager Lachlan Jefferies.

“They were splitting away from the global cyber team and bringing that in-house, all whilst they were running the service desk and fielding service tickets, opening and closing new stores,” Lachlan said.

“We had an older, more antiquated system that wasn’t centrally managed, and we were paying other support companies to do the support for it. We wanted to modernise our stack, specifically the point-of-sale equipment, while incorporating what we’d already used,” Kieran said.

The POS rollout involved introducing a new way for stores to transact, preparing and distributing equipment nationally, supporting store teams through setup and coordinating the transition from the old environment without unnecessarily disrupting trade.

For a small IT team of only 2 employees, the scale of change was substantial.

“One of the biggest challenges was the competing projects and not being able to put 100% into one thing at one time,” Kieran Egan said.

“I was impressed by the scale, how quickly they can make change and adapt to new technologies and move through IT work, with the size of their team. The fact that Kieran and Raj were able to do all of that, I think it certainly speaks to the importance of partnerships, but it really speaks to the importance of, how well they manage,” Lachlan said.

Adding further complexity were the realities of working within a global organisation. Access restrictions, security requirements and dependencies on international stakeholders meant that not every challenge could be solved immediately.

“When you're when you're dealing when you're going independent, Global still have to look after their data, their sensitive information. There are just certain limitations you run into," Lachlan said.

The challenge, therefore, was not only to deliver a Microsoft migration or a POS refresh. It was to establish a more independent Australian technology platform, modernise the retail environment and keep a national business moving while several interdependent transformation programs were underway.

Kieran Egan, IT Manager at The Body Shop Australia.

The Partnership

The relationship began before the migration project itself. Through a shared focus on retail technology, Truis and The Body Shop Australia built a working relationship that ultimately led to discussions around the organisation's broader transformation plans.

“They saw that we were really heavily investing in retail and in teams exactly like theirs,” Lachlan said.

That alignment created a shared understanding of the unique pressures retail organisations face.

Rather than seeing the engagement as a vendor-client relationship, both parties approached it as a partnership focused on achieving a common outcome.

The Body Shop Australia brought deep knowledge of its environment, store operations and business priorities. Truis brought project governance, Microsoft expertise and delivery capability.

When challenges emerged, the teams focused on solving problems.

“We were supportive. We looked at a problem, worked out how we would solve it. It did push the project back because of the restrictions we were working with, but everyone just went all in, worked through it, and looked to get a solution for the challenges presented to us, and we worked through them together,” Kieran said.

“The problem came up and everyone just came together. Everyone was very open with the communication,” Lachlan said.

“Truis really did work with us to provide alternate solutions, to reassure global as well, to help communicate back to them," Kieran said.

“The resilience shown by the teams, no matter what the challenge was, we worked through it. Whatever the problem was that was thrown at us, we were able to solve it and find a better way to move forward. The communication was the key part that made it work well,” Kieran said.

Lachlan said the project was led by The Body Shop Australia, with Truis working behind the scenes to help turn the plan into a practical national deployment.

“It was very much a team effort and really led by The Body Shop, with Truis as the supporting partner,” Lachlan said.

"I was extremely grateful for the relationship that we had with Truis throughout the project. We encountered many challenges with the domain name migration, partly due to security processes, competing projects, and all the other stuff going on at our end as we effectively transformed our entire environment.

What really stood out about Truis was everyone's flexibility when challenges were presented; they came back with solutions, which really kept the ball moving and continued working through the problems that we had. Everyone on the team was really knowledgeable, making it a real positive experience."

Kieran Egan
IT Manager
The Body Shop Australia

The Solution

To support The Body Shop Australia's transition to a more independent operating model, the teams delivered a broad program of technology modernisation.

Truis worked alongside The Body Shop Australia throughout the migration, providing technical expertise, project governance and delivery support across the Microsoft 365 migration, domain modernisation, Azure services and security improvements.

Working closely with Kieran, Raj and key global stakeholders, the team helped navigate complex access requirements, coordinate the migration and maintain momentum across the projects.

The Microsoft migration established the foundations the Australian business needed to manage more of its own environment. The work supported identity, Microsoft 365 services, collaboration data, files, security, device management and the transition towards locally controlled business systems.

“I think probably the biggest outcome is their independence to make local decisions based on the local market and what's best for their staff, their customers and their partners,” Lachlan said.

The work required close coordination between The Body Shop Australia, Truis and global stakeholders. Kieran and Raj stayed closely involved in access decisions, environment mapping, user communications, issue management and practical decisions about how the new environment would operate. Their knowledge of the business helped the wider project team assess options in the context of store operations, employee requirements and global obligations.

At the same time, The Body Shop Australia undertook a significant retail transformation through the rollout of Shopify POS.

The Body Shop Australia selected Shopify to create a more integrated relationship between its e-commerce and in-store environments. The new platform would allow stores to move beyond the limitations of the previous POS system and give the business a more flexible foundation for transactions, payments, loyalty, inventory and reporting.

Truis supported the rollout by sourcing the POS hardware, staging and configuring devices, packaging store-ready kits and coordinating distribution to stores nationwide.

“We were able to use Truis to help stage all the equipment for us. They're able to source the hardware for us and stage it, package it up, and then ship it out to our stores before launch. That allowed us to work with the stores to help set up the equipment ready for transacting, be able to trial and test the equipment before we went live with it, and when the go-live date happened, we were able to just switch it on, take the old equipment away and could transact the next day like nothing happened," Kieran said.

The equipment was also enrolled into The Body Shop Australia’s mobile device management environment, which enabled the internal team to manage devices centrally and distribute applications and security updates more consistently.

“Truis was really good for making sure that the equipment was all there, and it also went into our mobile device management tool as well, so we could centrally manage all the devices. We could push security updates down, and we could push applications down to the stores, which are all features that we didn't have the capabilities of with the previous setup," Kieran said.

The Outcome

The transformation delivered immediate operational benefits across The Body Shop Australia's technology environment. The business gained greater control over key systems, improved responsiveness, increased agility and created a stronger platform for future growth.

The new technology foundations have also positioned the business to continue evolving its environment, rolling out new capabilities faster and responding more effectively to local requirements.

“It really does allow us to deploy a lot quicker. We can just be much more agile in the way that we operate as a business,” Kieran said.

The Shopify POS rollout created a more modern and connected transaction environment, with online and in-store operations working more closely together. The business has better access to inventory and customer information while providing store teams with a more intuitive platform.

“It’s modernised the way that we can transact with our customers. All the loyalty programming is integrated into the tool, and it’s not separate platforms that we have to utilise,” Kieran said.

“The stock accuracy piece has been huge for us. Online, a customer can go and see that there are seven products of that particular item at a store and trust that they can go there and pick it up,” Kieran said.

“It really just gives a better experience for customers. It also allows more features to be pushed out to stores quicker. We've got a more consistent pricing model across the stores because it's all centrally managed,” Kieran said.

"The bit that was super commendable from outside was the amount of focus the team put on communicating ahead of time to the stores, doing internal tests before pushing them out. The amount of thought and care that was put into the people this was impacting, even right down through to the consumer, thinking about that POS upgrade and how that was going to make a better experience for The Body Shop customers...Hayden, Kieran and Raj never lost sight of who that solution was for," Lachlan said.

The Body Shop Australia was among the early retailers in Australia to implement Shopify in-store at this scale. Delivering the rollout while simultaneously progressing Microsoft, network and ERP transformation made the achievement even more notable.

“They were one of the first retailers in the country to do that integration at such a large scale and use Shopify in-store. It’s a game changer for their customers,” Lachlan said.

The rollout demonstrated that The Body Shop Australia’s small internal IT team could lead a national technology change without requiring technicians to visit every store. Equipment was prepared centrally, distributed to locations and supported through a coordinated transition involving store staff and the local IT team.

Kieran and his team's extensive retail experience was a major aspect in the success projects.

"The amount of work that you guys got through, outside of what Truis was doing with the business, the network, the success of the POS as well, the fact it caught Global's attention, that was phenomenal," Lachlan said.

The team's ability to execute multiple large-scale transformation programs without disrupting business operations attracted attention from The Body Shop's global technology leadership. Other markets began examining the Australian approach, with global teams engaging both The Body Shop Australia and Truis to understand how the rollout had been delivered at such scale and speed.

"A lot of the work that we did during that short period of time has been grabbed from other markets as well," Kieran said.

"The UK is now moving across with Shopify POS, which was our POS migration project," Kieran said.

"Japan's looking to take on our ERP systems as well. They're looking at the learnings that we've had," Kieran said.

As The Body Shop Australia established greater independence and modernised its technology environment, it also demonstrated what a focused, highly engaged local team could achieve when given the right technology foundations and the right delivery partners.

"Obviously we've got the benefit of implementing these projects, the cost-saving right for a business. But the end customer, whether it's a person coming in to buy our products and be able to shop more efficiently through Shopify or network accounts being able to be reset quicker because we can do it internally here. All these different factors kind of worked together to make sure that it was a good positive experience for our end users as well." Kieran said.

"The success of the transformation also relied on close collaboration between IT, Retail, Finance, Operations and store teams across the country," Kieran said.

The fact that other markets are now examining and adopting elements of the Australian approach turns a successful local implementation into something more valuable: evidence that The Body Shop Australia’s people, decisions and delivery model can help shape transformation across the wider global business.

“In all honesty, the amount of work that we were able to do in that short amount of time, not just from the domain name migration; we had a network migration, we had POS systems migration as well. We were extremely resilient; the amount of work in such a short time was a huge success for the business. We had really tight deadlines, and the team from Truis really helped us to achieve those deadlines."

Kieran Egan
IT Manager
The Body Shop Australia

Conclusion

Looking back on the project, both organisations return to the same theme: people.

Technology played a critical role in the transformation, but the outcome was ultimately driven by commitment, communication and collaboration.

For Lachlan, the dedication shown by The Body Shop Australia team stood out throughout the engagement.

“It's the people and their passion. It was clear that Raj deeply cared about getting it done properly. It was the same with Kieran. Kieran just wanted to make sure it was done right.” Lachlan said.

For Kieran, that collaborative approach was one of the defining reasons the project succeeded.

“The strength of the success of these projects was working with great vendors like Truis and comes from all the people that have been involved with it. The project managers, more technical people, the account managers and everyone really, really made it successful…I think the strength of it was the people involved." Kieran said.

Lachlan agrees.

"I think it all comes down to people at the end of the day... people from all different parts of each business and clear communication,” Lachlan said.

Together, The Body Shop Australia and Truis delivered more than a Microsoft migration or a national POS rollout. The project established a stronger technology foundation for the Australian business, enabled greater local independence and helped position The Body Shop Australia as a leader in transformation across the wider organisation. The result was a modern, scalable platform that continues to support growth, innovation and better experiences for both employees and customers.